Template:Species-2021-08

Species of the month

North Atlantic Right Whale

Some facts on this marine mammal:

First described: By the Danish botanist and zoologist Otto Friedrich Müller in 1776.

Type locality: Norway, Finnmark, Nord Kapp (vicinity of North Cape).

Body length: 13–16 m (43–52 ft). Females are generally larger than males.

Weigth: 40,000 to 70,000 kg (44 to 77 short tons).

Distribution: Western United States, Bermuda and Canada, to Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Portugal and Spain. Earlier they were also found at the Faroe Islands, the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Morocco and Western Sahara, but it's uncertain whether these populations are still extant.

Diet: The North Atlantic Right Whale mainly feed on copepods and other small invertebrates such as krill, pteropods, and larval barnacles.

Conservation status: Critically Endangered (January 1, 2020).

Surviving number: 200–250 mature individuals; population declining.

The North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) is a baleen whale, one of three Right Whale species belonging to the genus Eubalaena, all of which were formerly classified as a single species. Its coloration is dark grey to black, with some individuals occasionally having white patches on their stomachs or throats. Other unique features include a large head, which makes up a quarter of its total body length, narrow tail stock in comparison to its wide fluke and v-shaped blowhole which produces a heart shaped blow. Because of their docile nature, their slow surface-skimming feeding behaviors, their tendencies to stay close to the coast, and their high blubber content (which makes them float when they are killed, and which produced high yields of whale oil), Right Whales were once a preferred target for whalers. At present, they are among the most endangered whales in the world.